


for science!

by Raven_Ehtar



Series: Bones, Metal & Magic [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, In Denial, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, mettasans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-31 11:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12131616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Ehtar/pseuds/Raven_Ehtar
Summary: Sans is having trouble getting his mind off a certain celebrity robot.





	for science!

“hey, alphy.”

Soda flew everywhere as the scientist jumped. Whatever pop managed to stay in the cup sloshed out as Alphys spun around, eyes wide. 

Sans grinned. He didn’t have much choice. “sup, doc?”

“S- Sans!” Alphys seemed relieved it was him. Sans allowed himself to feel a little pleased with himself. The doctor took a couple of deep breaths, claws to her damp coat as her heart calmed down. When she opened her eyes again she frowned at him. “I wish you would stop using your shortcuts to scare me like that.”

“sorry,” he said, though he really wasn’t. “can’t seem to help it. you’re just so jumpy.”

“You could shortcut to the door and knock.” Putting down her empty cup, she dabbed rather ineffectually at the pale splotches on her white lab coat with a fistful of wadded, already used tissues. 

Sans looked over at Alphys’ front door. Despite no longer working as the Royal Scientist, she still lived in the old labs. With so many inhabitants moving to the surface, most especially King Fluffybuns and his entourage, there was no real issue of space - a new and strange concept. But Alphys had been allowed to remain where she was, where she had grown comfortable and made a home, while new spaces were made up for the new Royal Scientist. It was probably for the best. Sans wasn’t sure where she had lived before, but wherever it had been wasn’t likely to have enough space for her collections. Who knew what she would get up to without her anime and comic books. 

Which was neither here nor there. The important point was that her front door was a metal sliding door. Totally unsuitable for knock-knock jokes. 

“nah. maybe invest in waterproof coats?”

Alphys grumbled, grabbing more tissues. 

“say, why did the scientist install a knocker on her door?”

“I don’t know, Sans. Why?”

“because she wanted to win the _no-bell_ prize.”

Despite her annoyance, Alphys chuckled at his joke. It was always a good measure of a person, he thought, if they could appreciate a pun. The quality of the material itself was almost, well, _immaterial_ , as it was the listener’s ability to let go and laugh that mattered. Dr. Alphys could laugh. More now that there wasn’t so much weighing on her, and it was good to see. 

“i would tell you a chemistry joke, but i’m afraid it wouldn’t get a _reaction_.”

She laughed a little harder, a snort or two sneaking between the chuckles. Alphys didn’t often come to the MTT Hotel and Lounge to see his shows due to her shyness, although Undyne was starting to change that a little. Not many people used the hotel for its rooms anymore, but the Lounge still had shows, and folks still came to them.

Sans endeavored to grin a little wider. Laughter, good times and bad jokes. So long as there were those, then everything was good. 

When Alphys’ laughs subsided, she was still smiling, the stains on her coat forgotten or forgiven. “What brings you here, Sans? Finally taking me up on some Mew Mew action?”

He held up a hand. “nah, not today. i was hoping to initiate some science bud time.”

“Ooooh!” The lizard lady’s eyes lit up behind her specs. Next to her shows and comics, science was her passion - sometimes it was questionable which came first - and in both cases she had limited options for who she could share that passion with. Sans could sympathize. 

“What did you have in mind? There’s been so much coming down from the surface that even a non-Royal Scientist like me has been getting a _lot_ to sort through. The plant biology alone! They have flowers of every color, some that bloom at night, and some that will _eat_ insects, and… andmaybeflowersaren’tthebestthingstotalkaboutrightnow but the _trees_ , Sans! Some of them get taller than our city buildings, and are so old they were old before the war began! And some trees can be trained to stay so small they fit into a little pot! I was going to try that. It’s called ‘bon-sai,’ I’ve already got some seeds planted, wouldyouliketosee--?”

A second hand joined the first to try and stem the tide of enthusiasm threatening to bowl him over. He wasn’t sure what it was, but so much energy always made him feel lazier than ever, and he actually _had_ come here with a goal in mind. “that’s cool, alphy, but i was actually going to ask about mettaton.”

Alphys blinked, brought up short. “Mettaton? What do you want to know about him?”

Sans shrugged, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie. “well, you know… he’s a celebrity, so everyone wonders all about him. you should hear pap go on about him. and i kinda work with him, so it might be nice to know a little more about how he thinks…”

Alphys stared at him, eyes narrowing a little. Sans did his best not to blush under the scrutiny. Not blushing usually wasn’t a problem, but this _was_ rather embarrassing, coming to Alphys to find out more about good old MTT. Like some sort of obsessive fanboy…

Not that he was, not at all. It was just hard to get away from Mettaton these days. He was literally on the television every single day, on several channels. Papyrus loved every one of the shows MTT starred in, so the guy was in his house, in a way, several hours a day. When the TV at Grillby’s was switched on, it was either news of the surface and the progress of diplomatic negotiations, or any of Mettaton’s dozens of shows. When Sans went to perform his low key show at the Lounge, he always shared billing with the robot idol, though never the stage itself. His posters were everywhere, and while one might think that the whole ‘escaping to the surface’ thing would completely overshadow Mettaton, that was not turning out to be the case at all. 

Somehow the wheeled ham of a calculator was managing to stay front and center in everyone’s mind. 

He was staying front and center in _his_ mind, and it was getting exhausting. 

“Well… I can’t really tell you how he _thinks_. Y- you know, a programmer can only really lay down the foundations of a personality… After that it sort of… _develops_ on its own… like any mind…”

Sans was never sure how she managed to sweat, technically being a reptile, but she did. It was interesting, but he wondered if he should tell her he knew she hadn’t programmed Mettaton’s personality, but just built a body for a ghost to inhabit. Didn’t just about everyone know that by now? Didn’t _she_ know everyone knew? Oh, well…

“But I could tell you how I put the bodies together!” Alphys went on excitedly. “It actually took a lot to figure out how to make it so he could switch between the two, and his EX form is partially constructed out of soft materials to give more flexibility, _ohandhowhisvoiceisputtogether--_ “

Sans spent his entire afternoon with Alphys, sometimes at her work station where actual construction had taken place, sometimes at her design boards where all of her old sketches and diagrams were still pinned up, and sometimes flipping through her comics and videos, where a lot of the inspiration for Mettaton’s EX form came from. If Sans had had eyebrows they would have shot up over some of Alphys’ ‘inspiration.’ He wondered how much of it Mettaton had actually seen for himself, or possibly how much of he had introduced Alphys to, rather than the other way around.

It was nice to hang out with Dr. Alphys, talking technical jargon, spending time where theories were put to the test and sometimes amazing things came about. It was nostalgic, really, to be in the grip of theories and diagrams, cracking the occasional joke, having a good time. 

He only drifted off about three times the whole time he was there. 

By the time he left he felt as though he knew as much or more about MTT’s wiring than he knew his own bones. Some details were already fading from his mind, but others would stick with him for… quite some time. 

Alphys had gone to some lengths to make it so Mettaton could produce actual vocal sounds, and not just a digitized render of one. To do that she basically built a voicebox for him, complete with everything needed to create complex sounds, like lungs, a diaphragm, esophagus, tongue, teeth and lips. She’d even had to create a synthetic saliva to keep everything lubricated, because of course none of this would work properly if it was _all_ metal.

If Sans had been hoping to take Mettaton off his mind by coming to Aphys, then he was disappointed, not to mention an idiot. How was filling his head with _more_ of the guy supposed to work?

‘Course, this all explained how a robot could be so expressive, so there was that, he supposed. Now he just wondered _how_ soft lips and tongue could be without losing their integrity…

Oh, _marrow._

* * *

_“Oh, darliiiiinnnngggg~”_

Sans looked up, letting the upside down ketchup bottle dump out its entire contents on his plate without watching. Weaving skillfully through the open maze of tables on one wheel, Mettaton was coming over to his table. It was probably the first time he’d seen the bot come straight-ish from stage to table, with no stopping to charm everyone along the way. 

Sans nodded at him. “sup, metty?”

“Darling,” the robot said reproachfully as he come to a prim stop at Sans’s table. “Please don’t call me that. At least not in public.”

“ok. sup, metts?”

Mettaton sighed theatrically, but didn’t protest the new nickname. Sans filed it away for the future. 

“I can’t help but notice, my dear, that you’ve been spending more time here than usual. Don’t you normally go to that diner in Snowdin? What is it called?”

“grillby’s.”

“That’s the one. I was under the impression that you preferred the particular _cuisine_ they offered than what can be found here.”

Sans shook the ketchup bottle a little, making certain not a delicious drop was left behind. “yup.”

“And yet here you sit, night after night for the last week, partaking of only the best the Underground has to offer. I’m sure it’s been a trial for you, darling, so why do you do it?”

No more ketchup was forthcoming, so Sans set aside the bottle and went about making certain it was spread evenly across every morsel. “oh, you know. variety.”

“Reeeaaally?” The bot leaned in closer over the table, a little hindered by his less flexible shape, but managing just the same. Sans watched him curiously. “Because it seems to me that for _variety_ you seem to be limiting yourself rather unfairly. Every night after finishing your little show you find a table, order some food, watch _my_ show, and then leave. And if I do say so myself, darling, you always watch very closely.” He leaned in closer, and Sans had to stop himself from leaning away. Were his cheekbones heating up?

“Tell me, my dear,” Mettaton’s voice lowered, “are we watching because we’re hoping for some _pointers_ , or…?”

About a dozen responses flashed through Sans’ mind, more than half of them puns and none of them seeming adequate enough for the problem at hand. Flustered, he grabbed his marinated burger and blurted out the first thing he could think of, which was, “i’m watching for science!”

A question mark flashed on Mettaton’s face, and Sans didn’t stick around to see if he came up with anything more coherent than that. He stood, clutching the dripping burger, and took a shortcut straight home. 

He would probably wait a few days before heading back to Hotland.

**Author's Note:**

> So I've descended into this particular level of hell. Here I am.


End file.
